Provo • Brigham Young University is apparently prepared to pay top dollar for an offensive coordinator to replace Ty Detmer, who was dismissed two days after the disappointing 2017 football season ended.
Citing an unnamed source, the website footballscoop.com reported Wednesday night that former BYU offensive line coach Jeff Grimes, currently the offensive line coach and running game coordinator at LSU, has accepted the OC position at BYU “pending formal clearance which is expected in the next 24 hours.”
A source close to the current staff at BYU confirmed that the position has been offered to Grimes, 49, and expects the school to formally announce it Thursday.
Later Wednesday night, BYU Associate Athletic Director for Development Chad Lewis seemed to confirm the hiring:
Grimes has been a coach for 22 years, but has never been an offensive coordinator.
According to figures on assistant coaches salaries published by USA Today, Grimes was making more than $560,000 annually at LSU.
Footballscoop.com, which specializes in coaching news, also reported that BYU is expected to make another addition to the staff along with Grimes. When BYU announced it was relieving Detmer of his OC duties on Nov. 27, it said in a news release that all of its offensive coaches remained under contract.
The other offensive coaches are running backs coach Reno Mahe, offensive line coach Mike Empey, receivers coach Ben Cahoon and tight ends coach Steve Clark. Empey and Clark stand the best chances of being retained, a source said.
Grimes is expected to remain on LSU’s staff through the Tigers’ game against Notre Dame in the Citrus Bowl on Jan. 1.
The early signing period for football is Dec. 20-22, and BYU coach Kalani Sitake has said he wanted to have an offensive coordinator in place before that period begins to ease the fears of prospects who have committed to the Cougars.
Grimes graduated from UTEP in 1991 after a playing career as an offensive tackle and worked at Rice, Texas A&M, Hardin-Simmons, Boise State and Arizona State before joining coach Gary Crowton’s BYU staff in 2004. He left BYU for Colorado after the 2006 season, and has since coached at Auburn and Virginia Tech.
The Cougars won the Mountain West Conference title in 2006 and went 11-2 with Grimes as its offensive line coach.
A native of Garland, Texas, Grimes joined the staff at LSU in 2014.
Grimes has had three of his players selected in the NFL Draft in his three-plus seasons at LSU, and seven have earned All-SEC honors. Three have earned All-America citations. Twenty-nine times in 37 games an LSU running back has rushed for more than 100 yards.
